Tim Peterson, Columnist
Ideology: Independent | Writing from: New York

The Golden State’s got gangrene. It’s been wounded for a while, bleeding out. A $20.7 billion budget deficit. A $14.4 billion projected gap between revenue and spending in 2010-11. A 12.5% state unemployment rate. A state constitution written for a population of 800,000 rather than California’s current 36,961,664 residents. And a state legislature too hamstrung by the two-thirds majority requirement to pass a substantial budget.

The state dug its ditch back in 1978 with the passage of Proposition 13, a voter initiative that all but crippled the state’s ability to accrue significant revenue from property taxes. And with the current housing crisis shrinking property values, the piddling revenue that property taxes do provide continues to dwindle into obscurity, stretching the budget gap.

Therefore, as CA Senate candidate Tom Campbell pointed out in a New York Times article last year, “Over 50 percent of [California’s] revenue is dependent on personal income tax.” Unfortunately, the growing unemployment rate isn’t helping matters. And rather than looking to those citizens with jobs to close, or at least maintain, the budget gap, the state used $30.2 billion of its $85 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allotment for tax relief.

Now, with less revenue to cut the deficit, the state is cutting jobs as well as purging prisons. But according to California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, Schwarzenegger’s prison population reduction proposal to reduce the inmate population by about 24,500 inmates in 2010–11 would only save about $255 million by fiscal year 2011-12.

But even then, how much does it really save? The newly free come with a cost—albeit not one the state will be able to take to the bank. With businesses barely hiring as is, how many are looking to hire someone with a record, even if it positions them better for tax breaks? Not enough. And what politician would propose a program to get these ex-cons jobs? One who wants to lose his, because his constituents aren’t fixing help anyone but themselves and their own. So many of the newly free will opt for other, non-taxable means, maybe crime and maybe not. But some will choose the former, especially with the low probability of getting locked up again so long as they play their cards smart. They know very well that the state can’t afford it.

Not that any of the main gubernatorial candidates are willing to do much about it. . The Democratic nominee, current state attorney general and former two-term governor Jerry Brown, has vowed that “in this time of recession … there will be no new taxes, unless you the people vote for them.” (It should be noted that as governor, Brown opposed Prop. 13, calling it “a can of worms,” but after it passed with 65% of the vote, he agreed to follow voters’ orders, championing himself a “born-again tax-cutter.”) Both leading GOP nominees, former eBay CEO and political tyro Meg Whitman and one-term state insurance commissioner Steve Poizner, have advocated further tax cuts in hopes that they will stimulate the economy and spur hiring.

Furthermore, the state legislature isn’t helping matters. With a two-thirds majority required to pass a fiscally strong budget, a kidney stone’s easier to eke out. The Times paints it as “a standoff between the parties of ‘no more taxes’ (Republicans) and ‘no more cuts’ (Democrats).”

The idea of cutting taxes as well as spending is nice. But don’t complain when no one’s around to fix the potholes outside your house and you pop a tire on the way to work. Don’t complain while your car is in the shop and the buses aren’t running so you can’t even hitch a ride to work. Don’t complain when you’re fired because your company no longer gets its tax breaks for keeping you. Don’t complain when you can’t collect unemployment because it no longer exists. Don’t complain when the Salvation Army won’t help you out because they’re broke too since no one’s getting tax deductions for donations,  so no one’s donating. And don’t complain to your congressman, hell no, he’s not listening to anyone footing his bills.

California’s economic potholes need filling, not politicians and the populace digging in their heels.

Of course no one wants to shell out their own cash for anyone else, and no one wants their pocket picked. But, please, shelve any Stamp Act argument. The colonists weren’t arguing against taxes but against taxation without representation, without consent. Therefore, a republic was founded, i.e. a representative democracy. Your consent lies with your congressmen. So, don’t like your taxation with your representation? Get new representation.

As Gordon S. Wood writes in Empire of Liberty, his history of the early republic: “Although [farmers in debt] were willing to resort to violence if the tax burden became too heavy, as events in several states revealed, they were discovering that electing the right candidates was more effective.”

Unfortunately for Californians, the current candidates would rather be elected than effective, catering to voters as opposed to serving up their own menu.